Joe’s not sure what’s better, the Rays sticking it to the Yankees in critical September games these past two days or knowing the assault the Yanks are under tonight from the New York media for officially blowing their AL East lead.

Baltimore and the Yanks are tied atop the division with the Rays just a game and a half back.

These are fun times, especially with the Rays winning 5-2 tonight on just five hits, three of them bombs. Dirtbag, Desmond Jennings and Bossman went yard, with Bossman hitting an even bigger blast than he clubbed yesterday.

A tip of the cap is order to Alex Cobb for settling down after giving up the booty in the first inning, a two run shot by Robinson Cano.

But Joe really wants to rant about Fernando Rodney and go on the record saying he’s likely going to deserve a Cy Young Award.

The way Joe sees it, dominant Rodney’s got 42 saves and a 0.71 ERA. Barring an injury or a massive Rays implosion, Rodney’s going to have at least another 10 save opportunities during the final 26 games. If he nails nine of 10 and imploded on the other, he would finish with 51 saves and an under-1 ERA. That level of dominance has got to get the nod. Not even Mariano Rivera pulled off anything like that.

You could make the starter-versus-reliever argument all day long, but you wouldn’t change Joe’s mind. Plus, the bow-and-arrow routine has to count for something.

9 Comments

"Went to ESPN’s Cy Young predictor just now.. Price is #1.. Rodney is #2…", no doubt, big ups to the whole Rays! for squeezing out another WIN form the stankee. And big ups to Cobb for shutting them down after the 1st... 1st place here we come....

"Price is #1.. Rodney is #2…", no doubt, big ups to the whole Rays! for squeezing out another WIN form the stankee. And big ups to Cobb for shutting them down after the 1st... 1st place here we come....

Espn's cy predictor lol!...Rodney has pitched 60 innings on the year compared to 204 for Felix and 180 for Price. Not to mention his WAR is half of felix or price's...Nothing against fernando rodney, he is having a great season but to say he deserves the cy young with a year that King Felix or Price are having, get real!

Actually, you declaring who "deserves" the award is much more subjective than the Cy Young predictor at ESPN. The model is simply based on voting patterns from previous seasons and shows that the type of season Rodney is having is often viewed favorably. Your criteria may be better, but keep in mind, it is still just your criteria.

And yes, Rodney has pitched much fewer innings, but I trust since you are familiar with WAR that you know that not all innings are created equally. And in fact, Rodney has a higher WPA (3.79) than Price (2.59), although Price (2.42) has a higher WPA/LI than Rodney (1.92). And for that matter, King Felix is higher than both pitchers in both categories.

For those not familiar...WAR says a pitcher throwing a strikeout is better than giving up a walk. But it doesn't care if that strikeout comes in a tie game or in a 12-0 game*. WPA measures how important each play is. So a strikeout in the 9th inning of a 1-run game is much more valuable than a strikeout in the 3rd inning of a 5-0 game. At the end of the day, you add all those up.

*Actually Fangraphs WAR does give some value to relievers for pitching in high leverage innings, but not full value.

The cy predictor is based on a formula which calculates points for wins/losses and a victory bonus for teams that win their division, which are statistics that are influenced by the ability of your team. In addition, it gives one point for a nine inning shutout and yet 2.5 points for a one inning save, which means according to the cy predictor felix's perfect game was less valuable than any one of fernando rodneys 42 saves...my criteria may be more subjective but the ESPN cy predictor is clearly inaccurate

The Cy young predictor is exhibit 1 of how one has to gin up the formula to make closers even present in the mix.

2.5 points for a 1 inning save? versus 1 point for a complete game shutout? That is the kind of silliness you need. Almost every year there are closers with ERA hovering around 1 or at the very least half of what the leading starter era is.

Having Closers win Cy Youngs is an abomination. A closer would have to have multiple games like Rodney did the other night coming in the 8th with guys on an repeatedly shutting people down.

Great SP pitchers always get thier eras juiced upwards with a few crappy innings a year. Pitching only 70 or so innings versus 200+ should eliminate them from contention in the first place.

However I do see your point with WPA, I didnt realize that in that aspect Rodney is more valuable to his team than Price and not to mention he has a greater WPA than everyone in mlb except King Felix which is really impressive. But even in that discussion you concede that Felix has better statistics, as he does also in every other statistic that matters.